


Mothering Mists

by Night-Mare (Aoife)



Series: Cradle 'verse [12]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author loves to chat in the Comments, Flame Active Character(s), Gen, Side Story, Unconventional Uses for Dying Will Flames
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-10-31 07:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10894980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare
Summary: Part of theCradle 'verse. Mukuro settles into the Cavallone Estate, and is taken under Nana's wing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Rules the World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607250) by [Night-Mare (Aoife)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare). 



He's warm and not hurting, and he has Ken and Chikusa within physical reach for once. And this doesn't feel like any of the rooms his 'Familiga' had kept him in once the experiments had started. Not with two separate Skies - there hadn't been a Estraneo Sky this generation - and two adult Mists.

They wouldn't have needed to experiment on him, to drive him insane, to try and break him if they'd had such wealth of Flames.

He suspects they can all tell he's awake, but no one is being so gauche as to call him on it, to rush into interrogation or fresh experimentation - not that. Something in his Flames comes up new. That itself is not a surprise, not with how hard and fast the experiments had been coming recently.

He probed it gently, trying to figure out what they'd tried this time. It wasn't another set of memories from another death - nor was it a fresh bit of body horror, like the time - he cut that memory off.

Huh. Had they actually managed to _escape_? He remembered killing the two adult Flame Users his Familiga had with the little Sky; that had been fun, and they had definitely deserved it.

The little Sky had been amusingly blood thirsty too, and the two boys he'd caught a glimpse of before they'd all crashed had been coated in blood and very intent on getting to what he presumed was their Sky.

He poked that new site again, and was rewarded with a poke back along the new - he blinked, confirming he was awake and there was a tackle-hug that felt very strongly of the little Sky and a chuckle from one of the adults present.

"Gently, Tsuna. From what we saw of the notes before Xanxus really lost his temper he's not going to be very used to being hugged." It was kind of strange being hugged like this, and it made him squirm, but it was also nice? He assumed Tsuna was the little Sky's name, which meant it was his Sky's name and he hugged back tentatively, very conscious of the Estraneo-be-damned extras wrapped around his waist.

He burrowed deeper into the bond, and borrowed everything his Sky was willing to let him have. The memories and the words poured into his head, and he snatched one from the torrent. It felt right, like it was a name he could take for now.

It also gave him names for the other Sky - Dino-nii, who had rescued his Sky, too, and Nana, who was his Sky's mama and one of the two Mists present, and the other was Shamal. The memories said they could be trusted, that even the two Mafia men had helped his Sky undo the damage his father had done to him.


	2. Chapter 2

Nana no-name - she reacted badly the one time Mukuro had called her Sawada, which had taken him a little time to figure out went, given that it was buried in all the memories he'd received from his Sky - confused him thoroughly. Only his Sky was hers, yet she mothered all four of the others equally; she even extended that mothering to the older Sky and some of his younger retainers, and how could a Mist who had been so badly hurt _do_ that? He wanted to know, because it made him _hope_.

She even mothered him and Ken and Chikusa, and he was grateful for it for the other two, but didn't she understand that he was Estraneo, and seen abomination - on more than one level? Didn't she understand that he was poison, that the only thing he brought was pain and death? The Arcobaleno knew he was dangerous; he could see it in their eyes, in the way Mammon had tied up some of their attention in monitoring him, even as they taught him more about his Flames.

But her and her son didn't see him that way, and it was confusing, and made him want to lash out.

Except that every time he tried to lash out, she just defused it. Her Flames would curl around his and dispel his illusions; he'd say something sharp and find a piece of toffee in his mouth sticking his jaw shut. Pranks were stepped around and redirected. Which was amusing, but also life threatening when one of them hit Xanxus, or Bel.

Watching her, trying to figure out the how and the why of Nana no-name became something like a game. Especially when he realised just how much power she wielded in the household. He'd known intellectually, had been told her title, but the reality of it, the way she bent the household around herself - it was fascinating.

He wanted to know _how_ she did that. It was an easy, perhaps feminine strength, but it appealed to him.


	3. Chapter 3

Nana is amused by her new shadow, and the way the two boys that follow him insist on guarding her when she ventures out of the Estate. She has her own, adult bodyguards from amongst the Cavallone men, but it gets Ken and Chikusa, and even Mukuro to actually leave the Estate and venture out amongst the civilians and the mundanes, so she doesn't tell them off. She doesn't _deliberately_ set out to use the trips to teach the boys, but it becomes a game.

Chikusa is a Rain, a far more soothing one than either Squalo or Takeshi, though Tsuyoshi came close, and his Flames are very effective at lulling people into a false sense of security; Ken she encourages to heal the other kids in the marketplace, to interact with them and help build the Cavallone's quiet reputation as a benevolent and kind Familiga. They were, but sometimes a little PR was a good thing.

She shared a Flame with Mukuro, her little shadow, but he was harder to reach than his two followers. She'd started the process of reaching him, but he shied away from her mothering for himself. And she wasn't entirely sure of how to get to him.

She found it when they were out one afternoon, and she watched an idiot sexually harassing someone. Her fingers twitched, wanting one of the weapons Tsuyoshi and Shamal had taught her to use; her Flames still not entirely under her control lashed out, tripping the pillock into a pile of very convenient horse shit. Mukuro had seen it, and burst out laughing, the first laughter she'd heard from him.

She sets out to drag that laughter from her little Shadow again. He is solemn, so often. It breaks her heart; as does the realisation that only he and Ken and Chikusa had survived the "shunning" of the Estraneo. That he had been born specifically to be an experiment, and she didn't want him to still think of himself that way.

She can't manufacture that kind of incident, but she can coax the boy - and his chosen name said everything, really - into coming with her to the market. It happens again, eventually, and she catches his eye when he spots her watching the harassment with a scowl. He tilts his head, questioningly, and she nods.

The twit ends up dangling, six foot off the ground by one of his ankles; a 'convenient' loop of rope wrapping itself around it, and her doubled over laughing. It becomes something like a game for the two of them.

She also starts talking her way through recipes and plans when she's in the kitchens; it takes Dino's staff a little time to get used to. She spots her Shadow watching her, more and more frequently, as he stops hiding himself from her, and eventually the staff realise that one of Dino's pack of Flame Active pre-teens has chosen Nana for his tutor, and they just smile when the Chatelaine seems to be talking to herself, and watch for a glimpse of the little Mist.

(It takes Nana feeling sick for the Familiga to realise the real implication of this; Dino had expected there to be flailing, for his staff to panic, but Mukuro slides into her position, and runs the household for the couple of days that it takes her to recover.)


	4. Chapter 4

Her little Shadow is shameless in a lot of ways. Like Takeshi, but from never having had some social mores demonstrated to him, rather than the young Rain's not caring. But unlike the other boys, he's achingly careful to keep his clothes loose and baggy. She knows something of what's under them - some of the notes about him had been rescued before Xanxus had lost his temper entirely - but none of them had pressed him about the additions, not wanting to make him shy away from them.

But he's been her Shadow for months and months now, and she tugs off his shirt as he'd spilled red wine on himself whilst they were cooking. She'd intended to throw it in to soak to stop the stain setting, and didn't realise what she'd done until Mukuro flinched and tried to hide from her.

She swears and blankets the room in her Mist, hiding them both from view, and drags the boy into a hug. There's mumbled imprecations from her, about the Estraneo's heritage and the stupidity of Mafia-men and holds him tight when he tries to escape her, and switches to trying to soothe him, telling him that it doesn't matter, he's still one of her boys, no matter his shape - unless he wants to be her baby girl, but she didn't get that feeling from him - and she wasn't going to let him run.

Mukuro is stiff in her arms, unable quite to understand her easy acceptance, and the offer he just received. He's a freak, and an abomination, but.

(He's also sneaky. Her guard is down, and he's been curious about the way she's been watching Tsuyoshi and Shamal. Asking her gets him a squeak and then a thoughtful counter question: Why couldn't she have both? He doesn't have an answer; but she suspected he thought her hunt would be funny to watch.)


	5. Chapter 5

"You're pregnant." She'd suspected she was, but she'd been more focused on keeping Shamal distracted, so that he didn't overthink what was happening. She was genuinely worried that if he did, the result would be the skittish doctor attempting to flee her and Tsuyoshi's patient training. (And their coaxing of him into the emotional web they'd woven between them; they were keeping the man. They'd just rather not have to _demonstrate_  that by having to hunt him down.) But the look on her little Misty shadow's face dragged her attention back from her increasingly energetic sex life to the present; he was worried, and she swallowed as some of the possible reasons for that unfolded in her head. She was so damn glad the Estraneo were all dead.  
  
"I know. But if Tsuna's anything to go by, I have easy pregnancies, Mu-kun. And no-one here's going to try and experiment on them." She pauses thoughtfully, a smile twisting her lips. "I suspect my biggest problem is going to be stopping people treating me like fragile glass." She holds out a hand to her little Shadow. He eyes her belly for a moment longer, and allows her to pull him into a hug.  
  
His next words are at least a little muffled, and make her want to hug the boy even tighter. "Does it feel good being pregnant?" They still had no idea whether the experiments that the Estraneo had performed on him were viable - and her little Mist, with his traces of Sky was very family-orientated.  
  
"For me it does. Some people struggle with it." She paused and then made the offer. "Would you like to be their padrino, sweetheart?" He nods. Spreads a hand cautiously across her still flat stomach, and she feels his soft Mist Flames slide beneath her skin. "Are they okay?"  
  
He nods a second time. "They're so tiny, but their Flames are already so bright. How are the others not seeing them?"  
  
"We're _Mists_ sweetheart." It wasn't actually an answer, but it'd do. And was as good an explanation as any. "Now. Shall we use it to pull some pranks on people?" He nodded a third time, and she grinned; pregnancy cravings and illusions should be an amusing mix.


End file.
